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Just The Daily Turn

A beach rose, plum red skin stretched
against a fog Maine sky, pushed

through spring, summer, fall all in
today. Her hip, now nearly rotten, hatches

below a withering to fertilize the marsh’s sulfur
shore. How is it that now you’ve gone too

along with every winter I’ve ever crossed?
Death has sent the seasons spiraling, speeding

the cycle. My Maine, my past slow state of pitch
pine and smoke, winds faster, an offbeat ticker

tape parade in a silent film stored too long. Colors —
the tipped grey on gulls, the thorned red rise

on the barberry bush — all bleed through my day
more brightly and sounds, waves sucking shore,

the dry brush of heel on hardwood, are clear.
All of the world, it seems, sharp against the loss of you.

After your death, after the mourning, after thoughts
of calling to ask about the oil change, questions

mid-sleep to an imagined weight nearby, after
the world continued to continue with every

sunrise, I saw dew without looking. Today
I watched a hummingbird moth’s proboscis

attain beak in a decent beyond the hostas. Confusion
of iridescent wings fluttered so fast I found feathers.

And I cannot fit the puzzle of it, this earth,
this day, all of this, more dazzling without you in it.


Judge’s Comments —
There are moments in this poem that sweep the rug out from under me:

After your death, after the mourning, after thoughts
of calling to ask about the oil change, questions

mid-sleep to an imagined weight nearby, after
the world continued to continue with every

sunrise, I saw dew without looking.

A beautiful elegy that shows loss can sharpen the world as keenly as love.

— Laura Donnelly


Cathlin Noonan (she/her) lives in Missouri where she works for the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis. She is Assistant Poetry Editor for The Night Heron Barks. Cathlin was recently longlisted for the 2020 Frontier Award for New Poets. Her poetry has been published or is forthcoming in The Banyan Review and The Broadkill Review.

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